One Upon an Ever After
by Minty Fresh Shock
Summary: Cinderella-based AU. RC Cesia's mother and father are dead, and she is stuck with a psycotic step-father. She must find a specific someone before her eighteenth birthday if she wishes to have a happy life.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I no own Dragon Knights, got it?  
  
Yes, another one of my annoying stories. I have finally gotten out of my writer's block by watching the great movie Ever After for the first time, and it has inspired me to no end. This will be alternate universe Rath and Cesia fiction, and is supposed to based off of the Cinderella story, however it has morphed into something much different o.O;; Please enjoy and give me your thoughts  
  
This first chapter from the point of view of Cesia, although all other chapters will be in third person.  
  
I was three when my father died. Well, his death was never confirmed; he merely disappeared while traveling a well-known trade route. What I remember of him is little. He loved my mother very much, but even though he gave me all a child my age could have wanted willingly, he always seemed...distant. When he came home after traveling around the countryside, after trading with gypsies and talking with local landowners, he would enthusiastically great my mother, while he would give me whatever present he had for me and a quick and uncaring hug. My parents would then go off to the bedroom for reasons I did not know at the time.  
  
My mother, well, my mother was a different story all together. She was beautiful, kind, polite, graceful, everything that was to be expected in the perfect Lady. As I was preparing for sleep, she would read me stories, local or from far, far away lands. But, only four years after my father died, she remarried. She met the man on a trip to the King to beg for more money to keep alive our lands. She had married him at the castle (without even telling me!) but since he had 'business to take care of', she had come back without her new husband. By then I was seven, and still had the spoiled childishness about me. I was angry with her, put simply. I had felt betrayed; didn't she only need me in her life? Was I not good enough? She begged my forgiveness, and for a year I was angry with her. After that year, she received word from her husband to come to the castle, and to bring me and anyone else she wished with her.  
  
We left within the day for the castle. It was a three-day trip on horse, but with the servants Mother brought, it took five. Our residence in the castle was short-lived. We slept in my stepfather's rooms for one week. I was bored the entire time. All the other girls talked about was boys, clothes, and other things a Lady was supposed to talk of. You ask, 'Don't you admire your mother, the perfect lady, though?'. Why, yes, I did, but that did not mean I wanted to be like her yet. Because I had no interest in conversation, I walked about the palace, viewing the different gardens, towers, and ballrooms. On one occasion while I was walking through the hedge maze, I met a boy. He was around my age, maybe younger, maybe older, with black hair and a lick of snow-white color, and red eyes. At first, I thought he was a demon from hell, lost in the maze, but I did not run. I wanted to be brave and be able to tell my friends back home I had faced down a demon, although curiosity was the main reason I stayed in my place.  
  
"Who are you?" I asked haughtily.  
  
The boy glared at me, drew himself up and stated haughtier then me, "I am the King's son, Rath Illuser, crown prince, and what, and may I ask, is your name, so that I know what gave you the right to speak to me so?  
  
I was not about to let him make a fool of me, so I drew myself up more and replied, "I am Cesia-", but my retort was cut short by a yell, "Rath! I heard you in there! Come here!" The boy, Prince Rath, glared at me, muttered, "It's your fault", and ran deeper into the maze. It would be a long time before I saw the crown prince again.  
  
That incident was two days before my family's departure from the palace. For those two days, I huddled in my room, afraid to go out, believing that if the palace guard saw me, they would chop off my head for being disrespectful to the prince.  
  
On the grey morning we set out for home, it was raining. Not heavy sheets of rain, nor the pleasant light sprinkle, but an annoying, constant dribble with the occasional thunder that turned the roads to mud. I was riding on a pony that my mother got me in celebration of meeting, and my mother and stepfather were together in the middle of the small company. You would think that would make her the least likely to be the first one to be shot, but it is said the least likely thing to happen is the most likely. I remember the scene clearly:  
  
We were riding our horses; the rain had long before soaked through out layers of rain protection. Above the clamor of our party, I heard what my mind had classified as a 'bad noise'. To explain, put simply, I am blessed with certain abilities, as my mother was. I whined at Mother I heard something bad, and she gaily replied to me that it was only the rain. Then I saw something, or somethings. Black figures were moving about in the trees. "Mother..." I called again, fear beginning to drip from my voice. Luckily, mother had sensed it too, but was not lucky enough to save her life. It was not in slow motion in which I watched my mother die, as many people describe it as, but within seconds. At one moment she was yelling to take cover, another the first arrow had landed around four inches below where he neck met her shoulder, and a final one where I felt her spirit disappear forever from my life.  
  
All else was like a dream, my step-father rallying the soldiers for a counter attack, the servants running for cover, even one of my friends loosing his arm to a poisoned arrow to save my life. Half of our soldiers were alive when we ran, and nearly all the servants were dead. I was hauled away on a soldier's shoulder, too stunned to even run for my life, my friend barely keeping up with his bleeding arm. We arrived home to stunned servants who quickly began to tend to us, quiet in sorrow from the loss of their mistress.  
  
And there we go, the first chapter of my story. Sorry, I am terrible at writing in first person in any case, but I have switched into first person mode, so next chapter, in third person, will also be bad. Who is Cesia's stepfather you ask? Well, why I tell you ;) Please review and give me your thoughts. 


	2. Chapter One

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Knights  
  
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A/N: I feel so loved! Six reviews X3 Sorry it took so long to update .;; And sorry this chapter is so so so short, but I wanted to go ahead and get it out so people won't think I died x.x This was shoved out in a hurry, I will probably re-do it, so it is stupid and OOC. i.e. Don't even bother flaming, this is going to give me nightmares, don't worry.  
  
This chapter, with the following ones, will be in third person.  
  
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Story so far: Cesia's parents have died from mysterious killers, leaving her with a stepfather she barely knows.  
  
In the orchard of an old stone house, a girl worked, picking up fallen red apples and putting them in her white-checked apron. Her hair was black, with an odd lock of burgundy, dirty, and pulled back. She had a dirty face, dotted with acne, as all unwashed teenage faces are, and her clothes were stained and wrinkled. This, my friends, is Cesia, once heir to a poor barony, but now lowered in status by her stepfather to a servant.  
  
"Cesia! Come in here!" a deep voice barked from inside the house.  
  
"Yes!" She yelled back, picking up a couple more apples before slowly coming into the house through a simple wooden door. Cesia walked through the portal into a simple kitchen, dumped the apples into a basket, and walked into the dining room where a man tall, dark-haired man stood impatiently.  
  
"You are to address me as 'Lord Nadil' when replying to me, and you were slow."  
  
Cesia sneered back, hands on hips, "My apologies, Lord Nadil, but I did not want to bruise the apples that you wanted me to gather."  
  
Her stepfather cracked his knuckles threateningly, "You are being impertinent to your elder, and we are going to court in two months. I thought it was about time that you had a proper governess, she will be coming tomorrow."  
  
"Bu-!" The black-haired girl was about to retort, but felt a hand on her forehead, pulling back on her skull.  
  
"Cesia..."A familiar voice said warningly. She was pulled backward into the kitchen, Nadil smirking at her stumbling walk.  
  
The hand turned her around, to face a red- and blonde-haired man "I am not in the mood to take care of whip-strokes on your back," Bierrez sighed, bruises from combat-training covering just about ever inch of his muscular body.  
  
Cesia sniffed and shoved Bierrez is the arm, "Move, you are in the way." Huffing out of the kitchen door, the black-haired girl went off to enjoy freedom while she had it.  
  
Reply to Reviewers:  
  
Hououza: Ego swells Thank you! I am usually not that good at writing first person though .o;; thank you the review! mumbles "Please don't read this until I re-do it...[/loop]" I feel like I am disappointing you by turning out a chapter just to get it out... Tsume Yamagata: Yes, Bierrez does rock (.), and thank you for your review Aquajogger: AJ!!! glomp Tankee for reviewing, and, as you can see, you were right in your guess o Lexzzz: I want you to know that you scare me, but thank you for the review o.O;; Iloveanime: Thankyou! Fairy Tail Faerie: Yes! Ever After is the BEST movie, and also, yes, this is a R/C. Thankyou! 


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